Spirit Lake Police is now cross-deputized with the Bonner County Sheriff's Office.

Spirit Lake Chief Keith Hutcheson said the two agencies have had a memorandum of understanding in place for mutual-aid calls in the vicinity of the city and county boundary for about 15 years.

However, the cross-deputization step gives responders a clearer direction on enforcement when assisting their neighboring agency, Hutcheson said.

Hutcheson said Spirit Lake can often respond to a call in southern Bonner County near Spirit Lake quicker than the BCSO can.

"Several times we've gone to calls where it's hard to take enforcement because technically it's not in our county or jurisdiction," Hutcheson said. "We're cross-deputized with Kootenai County, so we thought why not do that with Bonner County? It's just working together."

Hutcheson said the need for cross-deputization became clear last year when a stolen truck a suspect was driving struck his patrol unit in Bonner County.

"If it would have been even more major (of an incident), I would have been out of my jurisdiction," he said. "Being cross-deputized is cleaner and it gives more direction to the guys on the street of what can and can't be done. If there's a DUI that starts in the city and ends up in Bonner County, it makes it cleaner across the board."

Hutcheson said part of the cross-deputization process is working with the county jail and learning that jurisdiction's paperwork system. He said cross-deputizing with neighboring agencies occurs throughout the state and this is the latest agreement.

"The biggest thing is knowing that we're there to assist them," he said. "It was a formality that needed to be done."